It could be the Salton Sea's fault

Posted June 28, 2011, 9:41 PM.

A new scientific study, examining the fault structure of the southern San Andreas fault zone, has found that recent human regulation of the Colorado River may have delayed a major earthquake along the zone.

There hasn't been a large earthquake under the Salton Sea for the past 300 years.

The study concludes that in the past, regular flooding of the Salton Sea area induced large earthquakes, occurring roughly every 180 years.

Another discovery is that the part of the fault that borders the Salton Sea contains strike-slip faults, which produced strong, directional shaking. A slip of this kind of fault could trigger propagation of an earthquake northward into Riverside and Los Angeles.

The Beaumont, California weather pages are a service of WeatherCurrents. Cherry Valley is located in northern Riverside County, California, a community of the northern part of Beaumont, along the Interstate 10 highway, in the San Gorgonio pass area, between the communities of Calimesa, Banning.